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The Sexual Ambiguity of James Comey

James Comey is not old school. He’s to Eliot Ness as the original Batman was to the original Superman. The latter openly fought for truth, justice, and the American way because he wanted to give back to the planet that had given him a home. The former was a confused vigilante, motivated by the dark desire to revenge his parents’ deaths at the hands of bad guys.

Comey is Petula Clark singing “Feelings.” In his Senate testimony he described how his duties caused him “a whole lot of personal pain.” He was often “confused and concerned” about things, sometimes even “honestly concerned." More than the facts, he spoke of his “impression,” “reading,” and “sense” of the facts. Something Loretta Lynch asked him to do “gave [him] a queasy feeling.”

That’s not how Joe Friday talked on “Dragnet.” Or Clint Eastwood. When Clint shot a bad guy, all he felt was a slight pressure on his trigger finger.

Comey talks the way girls talk.

My impression, sense, and reading of Comey — my gut feeling — is that he’s got a lot of girlish qualities. Others picked up on this as well, in a subconscious way, as the twitter sphere erupted with Comey-as-victim-of-sexual-harassment memes.

The media as well. “Elle compared Comey’s one-on-one meeting with President Donald Trump to a terrible date,” noted Breitbart. “The former FBI director’s boss tried to seduce him. When the seduction failed, his boss fired him,” wrote the Los Angeles Times.

Like many operatic heroines, Comey had “confidantes” through whom he could convey his personal narrative, via leaks to the media. Thus we learn how he prepared for his date with the president. “Before going to the dinner, Comey practiced Trump’s likely questions and his answers with a small group of his most trusted confidants,” they told The Washington Post.

Anyone with a teenage daughter will recognize this scenario. “What’ll I say if he wants to go all the way?” she asks her convened BFFs. “How do I say no without turning him off?” Or, as Comey’s confidants would have it, how could he preserve “his own moral compass, but at the same time… [not] inflame his commander in chief.”

The girls make her promise she’ll tell them everything that happened, in as much detail as she can muster. So when she comes home, she does her best to capture her evening in her diary, including “very nuanced quotes… and a high level of detail.”